Broadband and bandwidth

1. What is broadband?

broadband refers to a telecommunications signal of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal.

2. What units are used to measure bandwidth?
There are a lot of ways to measure bandwidth, some measurements are very similar and are often confused. Below is a list of the typical units. The main thing to note is the difference between the bits and bytes units, they only differ by the capitalisation of the letter B. There is a factor of eight difference between Kbps and KB/s, this is because there is eight bits to a byte. Therefore a 54 Kbps dial-up connection can also be specified as a 6.7 KB/s connection.
Unit & Abbreviation

Kilobits per seconds Kbps

kilobytes per second KB/s or KBps

Megabits per second Mbps

Megabytes per second MB/s or MBps


3. How much faster is broadband than dial up?
Broadband Internet access (cable and DSL) has been replacing dial-up access in many parts of the world. Broadband connections typically offer speeds 700 kbit/s or higher for approximately the same price as dialup.


4. What are the speeds that broadband operates at compared to dial up?

Dial up- 58Kbps

Broadband- at least 200Kbps
5. What are some of the advantages of using a broadband connection to download something like a video compared to dial up?

Basically the advantage is speed. Broadband has faster transfer feeds. With boradband connection most music and videos can be downloaded from ITunes legally in less than 1minute. On a dial up connection it would take 10-15minutes to download on a 56kbps.
Dial-up modems are limited to a bitrate of less than 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and require the full use of a telephone line—whereas broadband technologies supply more than double this rate and generally without disrupting telephone use.